This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Tracking of assets in a data center is becoming an increasingly important function for many entities. Modern data centers have been growing significantly in size, often now encompassing hundreds or even thousands of independent components. Such components typically may involve servers, power distribution units (PDUs), network switches, and routers, as well as a wide range of other types data center components. Often these components are rack mounted in rows of racks. In large modern-day data centers there may be dozens, hundreds, or more racks in a single data center facility, with each rack containing a plurality of independent components. Some components may be standalone components, such as servers. In some instances the equipment racks may not be located in the same room but rather in multiple rooms.
It should be appreciated that managing the assets of a modern day data center can be a daunting task. Components are sometimes swapped out from one rack to another rack, and it is incumbent on the data center worker performing the swap to correctly note the change in location for each component. As time goes by, it is not uncommon for records of locations of various data center devices to become out of date and inaccurate. Having data center workers perform manual inventorying of data center assets can be a time consuming and expensive process.
Various systems and methods have been tried to more efficiently track data center assets. One such method involves radio frequency identification (ID) tags that are placed on assets before, or as, the assets are installed in racks. This requires encoding a tag with the information for a specific asset, and then affixing the tag to the asset. If the tag is removed from the asset or otherwise inadvertently separated from its associated asset, then the potential exists for the location of the asset to be lost. Also, a separate antenna is typically required to receive the RF signal from the RF ID tag of each asset. Accordingly, such a system can end up being somewhat costly when implemented in a large scale data center having dozens, hundreds or more components.
Still another system and method for data center asset tracking involves the use of a physical connection between some form of encoded ID tag and a bus-like strip mounted on a rack in which each asset is mounted. The bus-like strip collects the information from each encoded ID tag and transmits it, either wirelessly or via a wired connection, to a data center inventory management system. Obviously, if a data center worker forgets to connect the encoded ID tag with its associated strip, or if a wire should break, this can potentially lead to inaccurate reporting of a location of a specific asset. Also, physical connectors may occasionally fail to engage one another properly, and thus an ID tag will not be recognized by its associated bus-like strip. This may leave the data center worker incorrectly believing that an encoded ID tag for a given asset has been properly connected when in fact it has not.